A fascinating, if breathless ramble through the cosmos.
A blank notebook sings its siren song to 9-year-old wordsmith Mina McKee in this mesmerizing prequel to British author Almond’s award-winning Skellig (1998).
Mina’s bold, uneven hand scrawls “My name is Mina and I love the night” in her first chapter “Moonlight, Wonder, Flies & Nonsense.” Rather than chronicling her life in England with her widowed mother “to boring infinitum,” she decides to let her words “murmur and scream and dance and sing.” The result is the portrait of a writer as a young girl. Mina wonders and wanders, giddily examining the nature of the mind, language, sadness, swearing, schools-as-cages, daftness, owls, death, God, verbs, pee, pneumatization, spaghetti pomodoro and modern art—all through essays, footnotes, poems, stories, dreams, creative writing assignments and the occasional “extraordinary fact,” such as that household dust is mostly made up of human skin. The pages can’t quite contain Mina’s mad joy for life’s wonders, not even with occasional blasts of giant black type and rashes of exclamation points. Readers who feel like outsiders may find a kindred spirit in the homeschooled, mostly friendless Mina, who has been called everything from a witch to “Miss Bonkers,” and fans of Skellig will enjoy discovering the moment when Michael moves in next door to Mina.
A fascinating, if breathless ramble through the cosmos. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-385-74073-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Aug. 23, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
An engrossing, humorous, and vitally important graphic novel that should be required reading in every middle school in...
Jordan Banks takes readers down the rabbit hole and into his mostly white prep school in this heartbreakingly accurate middle-grade tale of race, class, microaggressions, and the quest for self-identity.
He may be the new kid, but as an African-American boy from Washington Heights, that stigma entails so much more than getting lost on the way to homeroom. Riverdale Academy Day School, located at the opposite end of Manhattan, is a world away, and Jordan finds himself a stranger in a foreign land, where pink clothing is called salmon, white administrators mistake a veteran African-American teacher for the football coach, and white classmates ape African-American Vernacular English to make themselves sound cool. Jordan’s a gifted artist, and his drawings blend with the narrative to give readers a full sense of his two worlds and his methods of coping with existing in between. Craft skillfully employs the graphic-novel format to its full advantage, giving his readers a delightful and authentic cast of characters who, along with New York itself, pop off the page with vibrancy and nuance. Shrinking Jordan to ant-sized proportions upon his entering the school cafeteria, for instance, transforms the lunchroom into a grotesque Wonderland in which his lack of social standing becomes visually arresting and viscerally uncomfortable.
An engrossing, humorous, and vitally important graphic novel that should be required reading in every middle school in America. (Graphic fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-269120-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2018
Navigating this stunning novel requires thought and concentration, but it’s well worth the effort.
Returning to themes she explored so affectingly in Moon Over Manifest (2011), Newbery Medalist Vanderpool delivers another winning picaresque about memories, personal journeys, interconnectedness—and the power of stories.
Thirteen-year-old Jack enters boarding school in Maine after his mother’s death at the end of World War II. He quickly befriends Early Auden, a savant whose extraordinary facility with numbers allows him to “read” a story about “Pi” from the infinite series of digits that follow 3.14. Jack accompanies Early in one of the school crew team’s rowing boats on what Jack believes is his friend’s fruitless quest to find a great bear allegedly roaming the wilderness—and Early’s brother, a legendary figure reportedly killed in battle. En route, Early spins out Pi’s evolving saga, and the boys encounter memorable individuals and adventures that uncannily parallel those in the stories. Vanderpool ties all these details, characters, and Jack’s growing maturity and self-awareness together masterfully and poignantly, though humor and excitement leaven the weighty issues the author and Jack frequently pose. Some exploits may strain credulity; Jack’s self-awareness often seems beyond his years, and there are coincidences that may seem too convenient. It’s all of a piece with Vanderpool’s craftsmanship. Her tapestry is woven and finished off seamlessly. The ending is very moving, and there’s a lovely, last-page surprise that Jack doesn’t know but that readers will have been tipped off about.
Navigating this stunning novel requires thought and concentration, but it’s well worth the effort. (author’s note, with questions and answers, list of resources) (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-385-74209-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2012
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